


Here the City Code is Lock and Load

by Sproid



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:02:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sproid/pseuds/Sproid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows that the interstates are more likely to take you to hell than they are to the next city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here the City Code is Lock and Load

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Закон этих мест гласит: держи пистолет под рукой и не бойся спустить курок](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1679411) by [Helga Winter (hwinter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hwinter/pseuds/Helga%20Winter)



Everyone knows that the interstates are more likely to take you to hell than they are to the next city.

Infinitely long stretches of broken concrete run through wasteland that's inhabited only by creatures that can survive the baking days, the freezing nights, the radiation leaking through the jagged rips in the sky. Chitauri stalk the heavy chain fence that runs along the road; half-starved human exiles wriggle through breaks to snatch lone children; Shi'ar and Wraiths and Kree roam the desert beyond in ragtag groups that turn on each other as quickly as they do travellers. No-one is safe beneath the flickering light of the unnatural heavens, and if you're not alert then you're not alive.

Natasha has been travelling across the states for the past nineteen months. SHIELD sent her out with a list of items to collect from Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Phoenix, Albuquerque; the last big cities to survive, heavily guarded by mercenaries who protect their own by killing anyone trying to take from them. The journey out took eleven months, hitching lifts from the few people who still had trucks or, more often, horses or oxen. The journey back should have only taken four, sped by the supply train she'd bought passage on through New Mexico and Texas, but she'd spent six weeks at the Jackson outpost in Mississippi recovering from a Reptoid bite to the abdomen.

Now though, she's back in New York, where the light is natural if dim and there are no aliens save for the wisps of energy that drift along the empty streets, through walls, hang above rubble and cast misshapen shadows along the dusty ground. The streets are empty on the outskirts this time of night but that doesn't mean it's safe. Natasha's had her guns in hand since she set foot inside the perimeter. Anyone who has never been to New York thinks it's a protected haven, the place from which the technology came to shift the portals from above the cities to miles out over smaller settlements, but the truth of the matter is that humans are ugly creatures when their city is overcrowded and resources are thin on the ground. Here the city code is lock and load, and you'd better be ready to prove you can follow it if you want to live.

SHIELD's HQ was beneath an old office block on the opposite side of the city the last time Natasha was here, so that's where she heads now. She avoids the inner parts of the city, which will be alive with all kinds of trade despite the late hour. The items in her backpack and tucked around her person are not for sale, and neither is she. Her skills and enhancements mean she can easily handle herself, but the best way to live to fight another day is to avoid unnecessary trouble.

Of course, in a place like this, that's rarely as easy as it sounds.

An hour into her journey across the city, as she makes her way down a deserted road that's surrounded by high-rises, Natasha picks up the sounds of knives being drawn and rifles being cocked in the alleyways that lead onto the street. Ten seconds later she is surrounded by wordless teenagers who have hunger and danger and desperation written into their lean bodies, their makeshift armour, the tight but sure grips they have on their weapons. The only reason they haven't shot her yet is because they think she's an easy target and they don't want to waste their bullets. 

It's their only mistake, and it will be their last.

The two with rifles go down first, one bullet to the head each, followed by the three with pistols who aren't prepared for her to move before they can shoot her. One of them takes his comrade down with a wild shot that gets the girl in the gut; she isn't dead but she's no immediate threat now either. That leaves eight remaining. They're younger and smaller than their fallen comrades but they're not stupid and they're not weak. Natasha's strength is amplified by the drugs she was given when she was a child; theirs is compounded by whatever they pumped themselves with before they went on their raid, and they'll be twice as wild now they know they have to take her out before she does them. 

Before they can regroup though, one of them lets out a shout of pain and falls to his knees. There's an arrow through his chest; it hasn't stopped vibrating when another one whistles through the air and takes out the girl next to him. Natasha grins. Clint doesn't exactly ascribe to the lock and load policy, but his equivalent always serves him well.

One minute later there are another two bodies on the floor with arrows in them, two with bullet holes, one with a snapped neck and one suffocation victim who may or may not recover. Nine to four, Natasha thinks with satisfaction, and one courtesy of the home team. After working alone for so long, she'd forgotten the rush that comes from competition with a well-trained partner.

“You can come down now, Hawkeye,” she calls, sending an amused glance up at the rooftop she's fairly sure he's on.

“Aye aye, ma'am,” is the quip that floats down, closely followed by a dark figure that throws itself off the top of the building and abseils down to land in the shadows. 

“They don't have stairs in there?” Natasha asks as Clint unclips himself from the line.

“This was quicker,” he tells her, pressing a button on his wrist strap that makes something high up the building go 'clink' and his rope to slither down and collect itself at his feet. “And you know me and new toys; I gotta check they work OK in every situation.”

In the darkness Natasha can only make out his outline, can barely see his eyes glinting faintly in the moonlight, can't make out his features at all. His voice though, the easy tone and casual cheerfulness that colours every word out of his mouth, that hasn't changed and is achingly familiar. Of everything she's missed, Clint is the one thing she's been desperate to see since she started the long journey back, and it's unbelievably frustrating to have him so close and be so unable to reacquaint herself with him.

“Coulson says hi,” Clint says, breaking the silence and easing the weight of the moment. He taps his earpiece, lets her know HQ are listening in. “He wants to know if you're late because you took time off to turn evil again.”

“I'm still on your side,” Natasha assures him dryly. “I had an unfortunate encounter with a Raptoid just outside Jackson. I apologise for the lost time.”

“Nah, it's cool,” Clint says. “You made it back.” As soon as they're alone she knows he'll be checking that she really is OK, just as she will be doing to him, but now is not the time to give in to concern. They need to scour the corpses for useful weapons and medicine and then get the hell out of here before anyone else shows up, which they'll be doing as soon as Coulson gives Clint the go-ahead to bring her in.

“Let's clean up and get out of here,” Clint suggests a few seconds later. “We've got new digs; I'll show you where we're hanging our hats now.”

“Then let's get moving,” Natasha agrees, and pushes what she wants down to concentrate on what they need, for now.

\-- -- -- -- --

The last SHIELD base was white and sterile and cool, a contrast so marked that it was a mockery of what lay outside rather than a refuge from it. They got used to it, of course, but Natasha far prefers this one. It's concrete and aluminium and other materials she doesn't recognise, fashioned into corridors and rooms that are big enough to serve their purpose and no larger, rough and secure and functional. With the prices of strategic resources being what they are, it must have cost a fortune to build.

It's also currently invisible and floating over Manhattan, which Natasha has some questions about. They'll wait though. Right now all she wants to do is fill Fury and Coulson in as quickly as possible. Somewhere on this floating pile of impossibility there is a small room containing a bed, a pile of food and a Clint who she knows will be equally as eager to fuck as he is to talk and hold and sleep, all of which she wants right now and is only waiting for because there are bigger things at stake.

Thankfully Fury and Coulson are as efficient as ever. While it's obvious there's more they have to tell her, once they've catalogued and taken charge of the collection of artefacts she's brought back, they tell her she's got forty-eight hours downtime before they need her again. That's thirty-six more than she expected, which probably means that whatever comes afterwards is going to demand everything she hasn't already given, but it's also the first favour she hasn't had to trade for in as long as she can remember.

\-- -- -- -- --

Clint's room is small and dark, standard-issue single bed on one side, metal locker and washbasin on the other. That's about as much of it as Natasha sees before Clint takes two strides across the room to stand in front of her, their bodies a hair's breadth apart, eyes holding hers while his hands twitch at his sides. “Can I -”

“Yes,” she interrupts, because it's always yes and Clint always asks, but right now she can't wait long enough for him to finish the question. His biceps are tense under her hands as curls her hands around them and pulls him towards her, leaning forwards to slant her mouth over his because he's not moving fast enough. With a low sound in his throat, he opens his mouth to her tongue and backs her against the door, one hand gripping the nape of her neck while his other arm curves around her back to press them together from chest to thigh so tightly that Natasha's ribs creak. It's too tight, too hard, too rough; it's as close to perfect as two people can experience in this life.

“Missed you,” Clint says, low and deep and sincere when they finally part, resting his forehead against hers with his eyes open and looking into hers. There's no joking now, no messing around, no cocky grin. That's the armour he wears to protect against harsh people in a harsher world. In this room, between the two of them, it has no place.

“I missed you, too,” Natasha assures him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding him just as tight as he'd held her a moment ago. She doesn't close her eyes, doesn't deflect his attention, doesn't hide how much she needs him. That's her skill to survive out there; with Clint, it's unnecessary. They are each other's weak spots, and it's entirely possible that one day that will get them killed, but it's no more of a risk than anything else they do.

“Bed,” Natasha says. “Now.” Impatient, she wraps her legs around Clint's waist as he steps away, lets go of his shoulders and pulls his t-shirt over his head before they reach the other side of the room. Clint lets out a quick laugh and buries his head between her breasts for a moment, hands sliding beneath her t-shirt to spread out either side of her spine. When he lifts his head, his eyes are wet and there's joy mixed with fear in his expression. “Hush,” Natasha murmurs, reaching out to brush tears from his eyelashes, cupping his face in her hands as she leans down to press a gentle kiss to each eyelid.

“Four months,” Clint says, voice hitching a little. “ _Four months_ ,” he says again, voice steady now, eyes dry. “That's how long overdue you were.” He kneels on the bed, waits for Natasha to lie down before he stretches himself over her, solid muscle and comforting weight.

Natasha doesn't apologise, because it wasn't her fault, because it wouldn't change anything, because she got the job done in the end and she's not sorry for that. 

“I didn't mean to be gone so long,” she tells him instead, because that one is true.

“I know,” Clint says with a smile, and that's all that needs to be said.

Their clothes don't last long, no match for two pairs of hands that are desperate to reacquaint themselves with bodies they've been out of touch with for too long. Clint's bulked up while Natasha's been gone – which lends credence to the theory that something big is coming, but Natasha pushes that thought to the back of her mind. In contrast she's lost weight; fever and sickness will do that to a person, and food out there was scarce enough that she's not put it back on. With careful concentration, Clint traces calloused fingers along her her new scar, which scratches the itch she's been ignoring for weeks and makes her sigh and shift and push against him for more. When she's had enough, Natasha flips them over, finds the nicks and scrapes he's acquired since they last did this, then turns his head to one side and traces around his ears with careful fingers to make him shiver and squirm beneath her.

“Take these out?” she says, resting her fingertips against the hearing aids she knows get uncomfortable when he wears them for too long.

“Next time,” Clint murmurs, catching her hands in his own and drawing them back to his chest. “I want to hear you properly this time.”

She slides back, presses her cunt against his cock, nips his lower lip when his mouth opens on a slight gasp. “That confident I'm going to be making a lot of noise?”

“Oh, yeah,” he replies. “Pretty sure I'll be joining you in that as well.”

They're not gentle with each other. They're too desperate for that. Clint's mouth is wet on Natasha's breasts, teeth sharp against her nipples, fingers hard and fast as they press into her and make her hiss. She retaliates with a sharp bite to his earlobe, scratches across his back that aren't going to fade for days, a spit-slicked hand that wraps tightly around his cock and jerks him to the same rhythm he's using on her. Their sweat-slicked bodies are overhot against the cool sheets, elbows knocking painfully into the wall, breath rasping fast in their lungs, relearning each other by trial and error and glorious exploration.

“Condom,” Clint gasps, hips jerking as Natasha's thumb swipes over the head of his cock.

“Where?” Natasha gets out.

“Locker.”

“Too far.”

“Condom,” Clint insists, pressing the heel of his palm against her clit before he withdraws his fingers and scrambles off the bed before Natasha can stop him. She swears in every language she knows, grips the sheet with white knuckles and resists bringing herself off only because she's waited too fucking long for this, for _him_.

Clint is sensible enough to roll the condom on before he returns to the bed, where Natasha is waiting to wrap her legs around him and urge him into her with two unyielding hands closed around his ass. They both still when he's inside her, tight grips pressing bruises into each other's skin, but it's only for a second before they start moving again. Then it's a race to the finish, each of them pushing the other higher, too much too fast and not enough until Natasha lets loose a stream of Russian in Clint's ear and tightens around him as she comes. A few short thrusts later and he's gasping out her name, tense against her before he collapses with a grunt. They lie together, broken breaths echoing off bare walls, until their bodies have stopped twitching and the wave of pleasure has subsided to a gentle warmth.

“Condom,” Natasha murmurs a few moments later, and stifles a laugh at Clint's drawn-out groan. She tickles him until he gets up and disposes of the rubber, but in recompense straightens the sheets out and retrieves the pillow from the floor while he's gone.

“You OK if I take these out?” Clint asks from across the room, pointing to his aids.

“Always,” Natasha replies. “Better?” she asks after he's set them on top of the locker.

“You have no idea,” he sighs, relief written all over his loose limbs as he returns to her.

There is silence as they settle themselves back down, Natasha on top of Clint with her head over his heart and his arms holding her steady. Here in this room it doesn't matter that they're floating above New York in an invisible military base, that their home has been invaded by aliens from places further away than they can imagine through portals they don't understand, that the human race is fighting a losing battle with itself and with its enemies and might not last another year. The bed is too small but the planet is too big; together in this room they fit just right, and everything else can go to hell tonight.


End file.
